# 461 The Proverbs – ‘A manual for living’ (MSG). Proverbs 22 (2) Children – a blessing and a challenge.

Even if you have no children, you were one once, so will still appreciate Proverb’s wisdom concerning them. As for me, I was the second youngest of eight children and my wife was the youngest of eight. So, we both had plenty of experience relating to siblings. God then blessed us with four children, one daughter and three sons. He has now doubly blessed us with eleven grandchildren, 8 girls and 3 boys. And one of my favourite verses in Proverbs is 22:6 which says:

⁶ Start children off on the way they should go,
    and even when they are old they will not turn from it.

Every time in our lives is important, but it is well documented that the “start” is very important, as follows:

“‘Development’ means changes in your child’s physical growth. It’s also the changes in your child’s social, emotional, behaviour, thinking and communication skills. All of these areas of development are linked, and each depends on and influences the others.

In the first 5 years of life, positive experiences and warm, responsive relationships stimulate children’s development, creating millions of connections in their brains. In fact, children’s brains develop connections faster in the first 5 years than at any other time in their lives. This is the time when the foundations for learning, health and behaviour throughout life are laid down.” ( Child development: the first 5 years | Raising Children Network )

Even Aristotle (384–322 BC) believed this. He wrote: “Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.”

But even earlier than Aristotle was the author of Proverbs as quoted above (22:6).

Of course, we understand that there is more to a child’s development than just “social, emotional, behaviour, thinking and communication skills.” And that concerns their spiritual understanding. Their knowledge of God, their Creator and Saviour.

My wife tells the story of getting down on her knees as an eight-year-old and asking for God’s forgiveness and inviting him to be her Saviour and Lord. She had been brought up in the way [she] should go, by her God-fearing, Bible-believing parents and God honoured that by drawing her to himself at a young age. Now in her mid-70s she has not turn[ed] from it.

Of course, as we are painfully aware, there are those who decide not to follow the ways of God taught to them by Godly parents, and God grieves but allows them their free will choices. For these we pray! But, this does not discourage us from seeking, with God’s help, to still do as the author of Proverbs says.

This was also spoken of by Moses to the people of Israel before they entered the “promised land”. He said:

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ⁵ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.  (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)

If you have children, what do you talk to them about? What are the impressions you are making upon them that will impact the rest of their lives? Hopefully it to Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 

The reality is, that, if it is not you influencing them positively, then someone else (friends, teachers, social media, TV, etc) will be influencing them, and maybe not so positively!

Timothy Keller comments: “It is folly to expect a child to work out for him- or herself the moral wisdom of the ages. What makes a person capable of coming up with a standard of right and wrong is not that their parents taught them exactly right but that their parents did teach them… If instead the parents just let their child grow up as a detached, autonomous self, that’s parental malpractice… So, according to Proverbs, there are three factors that determine the way a child grows up – the hearts they are born with (“nature”), the quality of the parenting they receive (”nurture”), and their own choices. The three interact in complex ways that no one can control, except God himself (cf. 21:1). A parent’s final but most powerful resource, then, is prayer to the God who opens hearts.” (# 51)

So, why not, if you haven’t already, make the most of this “most powerful resource”!

“This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven…” (Jesus – Matthew 6:9-13)